The young fellows took rugs on deck that night, and slept on the planks.
Theirs was the forenoon watch, and when turning out to keep it, lo! that little green demon glided quietly out from Conal's very bosom, and went leaping and rolling along the deck, aft, finally tumbling down the skylight and on to the table where the captain was lingering over his breakfast.
For more than a week that snake--known to be one of the most poisonous there is--was the terror of the ship. He was in entire command fore and aft, and the skipper was nowhere. The awful, though lovely thing, appeared in so many places, moreover, that it was believed to be ubiquitous. Sometimes it would glide out of a sea-boot or a sou'wester hat. It was twice found in the sleeve of an oilskin-jacket, once it curled up for the night with Viking, and once in the pocket of the man at the wheel.
This sailor had dived his hand into the outside pocket of his coat to find his "baccy", when, instead of this, he felt the cold wriggling-wriggling thing; he gave a whoop like a Somali Indian with six inches of square-0 gin in his stomach! The scream started the snake from his lair, and he went girdling along the deck and disappeared below as usual.
But he was smashed at last and heaved far into the sea.
Strange to say, Mr. Snakey, as he was called, appeared again all alive and beautiful next morning.
"He's the d--l for sartin," said a blue-jacket. "Dead one day and squirming around the next. Yes, Bill--what else can he be but the d--l, and maybe just the same bloomin' old snake as tempted Mother Heve in the Garding of Heden!"
But this snake was killed next, and there was no more trouble after this.
Captain Talbot, however, issued an order that before bananas were again brought on board the bunches were to be well examined. Or, in doctor's parlance, when taken, they must be well shaken.
Ascension was their next place of call. It is generally called a rock in mid-ocean. It is somewhat more than that, being over seven miles in length and fully six broad. It is hilly, its chief peak being about three thousand feet in height.
Well, the _Flora M'Vayne_ was enabled to get coals here anyhow, and they found the place what I might call semi-garrisoned. Moreover a gun-boat lay here. The officers of the _Flora_ visited her, and were hospitably received, and invited to dinner, everyone both afloat and on shore being anxious to receive news from England, while the papers the _Flora_ had brought were a sort of godsend.